fnatic had an up-and-down year, as their top eight finish at the Boston Major was followed up by a group stage, 0-3 exit at StarSeries i-League Season 4, after which they lifted trophies at IEM Katowice and WESG World Finals. Just before their two tournament wins, fnatic was ready for a player change, with JW now revealing that twist was one of the considered players.

JW is still getting used to the hybrid AWP role, but he feels it fits the needs of the team

Let’s start with DreamHack Masters Stockholm—the most recent event—where you were underwhelming as a team. Walk us through the tournament, what happened?

Stockholm was a big letdown for us. Our preparation going into the event wasn’t necessarily bad so we were caught off guard, you could say we got a wake-up call. Prior to Stockholm, we only focused on becoming better during the bootcamp. At the event, we realized we had a few issues that we had to solve so after the tournament we focused on that instead of working on tactics. It was a big letdown but we can still rise from the ashes here at the Major.

How has everything been going with this roster in which Xizt is the in-game-leader and draken is the main AWPer? How does it feel?

For starters, Xizt is really easy to play with. He’s probably tied with pronax as the best IGL I have ever played with. He is always calm. He is a very calm person so he spreads that calmness across the team which I think is really good. What is taking more time getting used to is probably draken’s main AWPing and my moving into a hybrid role. That is a role I have played before but I have always been able to rely on the AWP and fall back on it, that’s the thing that needs the most work but overall we are feeling good together. Xizt is probably the best signing we have done in the last few years. I’m really happy we managed to do that.

'Xizt is probably the best signing' fnatic have done in the last couple of years, JW says

Talking of the hybrid role, you were somebody that wanted to get away from main AWPing as far as I remember. Did it happen that way?

Both yes and no. I'm the kind of guy that would probably rather be the main AWPer if I could pick and choose. But the thing is, in our previous roster with Golden and Lekr0 it felt like when I played the AWP, we didn’t have anyone taking map control, someone that played really aggressively. Then when I played aggressively and took map control, we didn’t have an AWPer. When we decided to make changes and sign new players, we realized that we could not get anyone else other an AWPer at that point. Everyone including myself thought that the best thing to do was to move me to a hybrid role and let someone else do the AWPing because everyone is confident that I can do both.

I'm the kind of guy that would probably rather be the main AWPer if I could pick and choose. But when we decided to make changes and sign new players, we realized that we could not get anyone else other an AWPer

Touching on draken, he had a few issues hitting those easy shots while he was with NiP. It sort of became a meme but it was partly true. How do you approach that as a team? Is there something you need to do to make him feel better so he can hit those shots?

I think what’s important is not forcing him into situations he’s not used to be in. I remember a few years back when I was a really aggressive AWPer, in one match on Inferno, I was forced to play really defensive. I was standing in Library and I had the easiest angle but I missed the shot because I wasn’t used to it. So the important thing is to let him be in positions that he is confident being in, not forcing him into peeks and angles that he doesn’t like. I don’t think it’s that big of an issue. It’s not like we are building tactics around him hitting easy shots. I haven’t felt that it affected our team so far.

Talking about the AWPers that you were discussing you could have picked up for fnatic, another Swedish AWPer in twist comes to mind. He has been around for quite a while and was touted to join NiP and fnatic way back in time. It really didn’t pan out, he’s just stuck in the third Swedish team all the time, except when he was with fnatic for a while but he didn’t keep his place. Did you consider him during your latest roster changes?

We considered twist after the early StarLadder exit when we still had Lekr0 and Golden. He wasn’t really interested in playing with us which I can understand, in a way. People think that we are harder to play with. As the core we have played together for a long time, so maybe people are scared to join us because they think we are hard to play with, or he just thought that Red Reserve is a better team for him. I can respect that as well, if it’s the case. We considered him because in my opinion, he is still the best player outside of NiP and fnatic, easily. Hopefully one day he can achieve the things he wants with his team because I really respect his loyalty. It’s quite rare, I would say, to have a player that turns down all the offers which you could say are better. I wish him success.

As the core we have played together for a long time, so maybe people are scared to join us because they think we are hard to play with

As fnatic you have a great history at Majors. What is the general feeling going into this one?

The general feeling is still just like before DreamHack Stockholm. We are going into it to win it. We got caught a bit off guard in Stockholm but it’s not really going to affect us here. It’s the Major and we are known to play well in them, we know that we can perform here. We are going in not relaxed but happy knowing that it is a high stake tournament that we really love to play, so I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t perform well here.

fnatic has a history of "internal" issues for players leaving
i.e
pronax dennis lekr0 and golden, and to an extent olof because fnatic got screwed over when the swedish shuffle happen but then fnatic went to semis on eleague and 2016 fnatic had reformed in mid 2017
and yet they still bombed

i dont understand, he could play on a tier 1 team and he decides to stay with a tier 2-3 team, sure whatever you want about loyalty and all that stuff but lets take for example xizt, 5 years on nip, his teammates are his friends and it wont change it because leaving a team, so dumb that he didnt join any other swedish team (nip,fnatic)

Yeah weird af.
I'm often surprised by people saying "this game is fixed, they are throwing" and such day and night, but yeah why you would refuse the "ultimate" step of your CS career after having done everything needed to get to that point.
Maybe he wants to throw games discretly online, and not having to travel often to big LANs like he would have to with NiP or fnatic.
Or simply he wants to feel less pressure and still be a "pro" player on GODSENT/RR which is respectable but pretty surprizing indeed.

Well he mentions that xizt is the best signing the have done in the last years but he dont mention what he think about the draken signing. And he says himself that he would prefer to be the main awper.

Best option in this case yes. But if JW had to choose they would have picked someone else.
"we realized that we could not get anyone else other an AWPer at that point. "
He wasnt their first pick and he says it takes time to get used to Drakens awping because it's consistently bad.

tbh making such a statement within a major is pretty stupid bc it implicates that twist was their first choice (over draken eventually) and it shows that the team chemistry is not perfect to say the least.

People are gonna give Twist shit but the reality of the NiP offer is that they kept offering him a spot on a team with a revolving 5th member. Just like Maikelele, Allu and Pyth, surely he would've been blamed for the teams failures and would've been rotated out at some point. And honestly, he probably didn't wanna deal with JW and Flusha who seem to kick everyone that isn't named Krimz (whose patience and skill are godlike) on this post-Olof Fnatic team. The only big team he was up for joining was that brief Fnatic lineup with the Godsent shuffle, which made sense because it was new and it was with players he knew and liked, since he had played with Olof and Dennis before on LGB (and Lekr0, before he went back to Godsent). I get Twist. He could take the paycheck but he doesn't want to deal with drama bullshit.

If you're a spoiled person perhaps, logically it doesn't hold much. Back in the NiP days he was playing at a semi pro level at best, barely doing anything. So an offer even as a "rotating 5th" on a top5 team is easily the best career choice, if you are a serious player.
Twist is not a serious player that much is clear, he doesn't care about winning titles

>>I think what’s important is not forcing him into situations he’s not used to be in. I remember a few years back when I was a really aggressive AWPer, in one match on Inferno, I was forced to play really defensive. I was standing in Library and I had the easiest angle but I missed the shot because I wasn’t used to it<<
yes my dear bots, learn that.

why do fnatic fans hate draken? im a nip fan and ive got angry a lot of times because he missed an "easy" shot but hey brother you cannot hate him because he missed a shot i bet he sometimes has a lot of pressure because he may think a lot in not missing shots.

Well I don’t rly hate him, I just think he’s not the right player for fnatic. His decision making is bad and yes he’s missing too many of these easy shots. I just think is the smarter and more reliable player, that would’ve been such a nice move for fnatic. I hope they’ll try it again when it doesn’t work out with draken.